This was Gilberto Gil solo, Gilberto Gil unplugged; for the most part it was just him, his acoustic guitar and his charm. The raw edge to his voice, caused by recent throat surgery and apparent when straining for certain notes, merely added to the intensity of the occasion.

With typical charisma he built an easy familiarity with the audience; joking about football (he is a Chelsea fan) and of his wife’s nagging for him to write a new song about her (the result — ‘A Faca e o Quiejo’, ‘The Knife and the Cheese). While ‘Aquele Abraço ’ had the crowd singing along, it was ‘Expresso 222’ and ‘Esoterico’ that had them screaming.

Gil is a household name in Brazil; renowned as a musician, a social commentator and, more recently, as a government minister. He was at the heart of the Tropicalia movement in the 60s and spent the end of the decade exiled from the military dictatorship back home, his third home then is here after Rio and Salvador, he tells us.

His music is hard to categorise beyond being Brazilian. It bears hallmarks from all three of his
home cities; there are the African and indigenous sounds brought together in baião from Salvador, there are the endless varieties of bossa and samba from Rio, and the reggae and pop which he soaked up during his time in the big smoke.

At the Barbican we got a little of everything, including the obligatory song in English, and his Portuguese take on Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman No Cry’, one of his stand-out songs. The openings bars of ‘When I’m 64’ met with gentle laughter; “It’s nice to hear the Beatles in a bossa nova style,” Gil acknowledged, and the crowd seemed to agree.

Despite being the same age as Sir Paul, both born in 1942, and having taken the role of Minister for Culture since 2003, Gil has no plans to lay down his guitar just yet. He admits life in government makes finding time for music a little difficult, and he went four years without writing, but President Lula has been good to him and we can expect a new album in June.

Even if he were to retire his legacy is surely in safe hands, as demonstrated by his son Ben who joined him on stage for much of the concert.

After a night that encompassed reggae, bossa nova, break samba, samba de roda and a myriad of other musical styles you were left with the feeling that you had indeed been shown the sound track to an entire nation’s recent history. As usual it was the Brazilian members of the Barbican crowd that screamed the loudest, but then it was their lives that the soundtrack was being played out to, not ours.